Текст книги "Italian Kisses"

Автор книги: Lucy Lambert

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"Liam took me here for gelato. It was good, so I thought I'd come back," I said, giving my head a little toss to get rid of a few strands of hair that threatened to fall into my eyes.

Why is she here, too? Why doesn't she go away? The answer was, of course, her job. That didn't make me wish that she'd been anywhere else but here, though.

She noticed my discomfort and took pleasure in it. "And I guess you didn't expect to see Mr. Montgomery here, did you? Especially not with her."

She leaned to the side to get a better view around me. "Liam has that sort of effect on women. I'm sure you've noticed. Look at the way she's smiling. Look at the way she's leaning in like that, like she wants to leap across the table at him."

I noticed that already, thanks. I didn't want to give her that satisfaction, too. "So what?" I said, flipping my hair again, "He's obviously not interested in her at all."

Abigail shrugged. "No, I suppose not. I guess he's still infatuated with you. For now." Her eyes crawled over me, appraising, disapproving. I had the urge to stand up straighter.

I knew that she was jealous, that she just wanted to get a rise out of me, but I couldn't help getting angry with her. Her insinuations hurt. All my frustration had to come out somewhere.

"I trust Liam," I said, meaning it, "He doesn't want anyone else. Not her. Not you, either."

"A bit testy, aren't we?" Abigail replied, "I used to think he wanted me. Probably just like you think he wants you. But I'm just a secretary, and you're just a..." she waved at me in a dismissive fashion that had me bristling. "Oh, don't take offense. I'm just trying to make a point."

"Well, will you get to it, then?"

"Fine. We're who we are. Do you know who she is?" Abigail said, nodding towards the beauty sat across from Liam. The one who'd begun twirling her finger in her dark locks like a schoolgirl talking to her first crush.

I shrugged, "Some business contact, I'm guessing?"

Abigail gave me a patronizing smile like I was a country bumpkin and she some high-falutin' city slicker. "Her name is Lisa di Firenze."

"Is that supposed to mean something?"

That earned me another tight, patronizing smile. "She's not just some bimbo, which I know is hard to believe given her dog dish eyes at the moment. When she doesn't have Cupid's arrow lodged firmly between her shoulder blades, she is the head of the largest media conglomerate in Italy."

"Good for her."

Abigail shook her head. "I'm going to slow-walk you through this. Who do you think is going to win him over, when it really comes down to it? You, a nobody from Boring, USA, or a beauty who can match him in every respect? Wealth, culture, pedigree, future. She has all that. What can you offer him that she can't?"

"Me. I can offer him me," I said.

Abigail tilted her head, the sunlight catching in the coppery strands of her strawberry blonde locks. "Aren't you hearing me? Or is that liberal arts education still telling you that being a special snowflake is enough? You aren't good enough for him. And if you want to save yourself some heartache, you'll get that through your head before he comes to his senses and drops you like a bad investment."

A lump started pushing its way up my throat. I wanted to slap that sly little grin right off her pointy, too-perfect face. But that would just prove her point, and we both knew that.

Still, it was a Herculean Labor to resist that impulse.

"Oh, sweetie, don't worry. I'm sure there's a Joe Nobody waiting for you back home in Boringsville who'll love you for who you are. You just have to find someone who's on your same level of mediocrity."

She reached out as though to give me a reassuring pat and I jerked away.

"There, there," she said, closing the gap once more and patting my shoulder, "It can be hard to come to grips with."

"Don't ever touch me again," I said, my lips peeling back from my teeth. This time, she pulled away from me.

"Well, I do have a job to do," she said, hefting the briefcase, "Should I tell Mr. Montgomery that you're out here and that you'd like to see him?"

I did want to see him. I wanted to see him more badly than I had after the lecture from hell. Except I knew that would be selfish. He was clearly in an informal business meeting, and while I also thought that he would call it off right away, I wasn't going to put him in that position of choosing between me and his work.

"No thanks," I said.

The twitch in Abigail's plucked eyebrows told me that she thought I'd blindly follow my desires without thinking about them and I took more than a little satisfaction and pleasure in disappointing her.

"Don't forget our conversation," Abigail said, brushing past me.

"Don't worry, Abby, I already have."

I relished the way she bristled momentarily before yanking the door to the shop open, the little bell over it tinkling to announce her arrival.

Except that had been a lie. I couldn't forget what she'd told me. Not a single word of it.

I tore myself away from the window, wanting so badly to get a glimpse of Liam's face before I did, but not wanting him to see that I'd been there.

And I thought of what Abigail said all the way back to my flat, the conversation stuck in my head like a radio jingle.

Chapter 13

I sat in front of my laptop, trying to make myself do some school work when the text came.

I nearly dropped the phone in my hurry to check it, adrenaline leaving my hands and arms trembly and hot.

But it wasn't Liam. It was Isabella. She wanted to know if I'd like to go out with her and Maria for some supper.

My appetite had vanished entirely, my stomach having shrunk down to the size of a golf ball from some combination of anxiety, fear, and frustration.

I declined, saying that I had a lot of thinking to do. It was as close to a lie as I wanted to go, and even then my fingertip hovered over the send button while I fretted about it.

If I told Isabella what had happened, she'd want to come over and talk about it, and I just couldn't right then. Not with her, anyway.

Even though I didn't want her sympathy at that moment, the note of concern in her reply text warmed me a little.

No, don't worry about it. I'll be okay. I shot back to her.

I just had too much to deal with. My professor pretty much calling me an imbecile in front of the entire class. Me feeling stuck with how to move forward with my academics.

And most of all, Abigail's overblown lost cause speech. I knew she was just trying to get under my skin. I knew how Liam felt about me. More, I knew why he felt that way.

Still, dear Abby had managed to plant the seed of an idea inside of me. Or perhaps she'd just been able to water and fertilize one that had already been there.

Either way, no matter how hard I tried to concentrate on my readings for class I couldn't escape the thoughts.

Even Mr. Drayton's present-moment exercise couldn't drag me away from it.

Soon enough, I had to face it head on. What if Abigail, in her own twisted way, was right? What if I wasn't who Liam was meant to be with?

Would he be better off without me? And if I did care about him as I knew I did, if I wanted to be honest and true to myself, shouldn't I let him go, let him flourish, even if it meant that he wouldn't be doing so with me?

***

It was just after 8 in the evening when Liam came over.

"Hey. Why's it so dark in here?" he flicked on the light and I flinched at the sudden brightness.

I smelled the food before I heard the crinkle of the takeout bag. It was a rich, spiced pasta sauce smell.

"I guess I forgot to turn the lamp on." My stomach had decided to relax a little, and saliva squirted into my mouth at the scent.

"I hope you haven't had supper yet."

"No." I smiled at him, doing my best to look happy and unconcerned, as though I'd just come off a hard day of school and studying. It wasn't so far from the truth to feel like a complete lie.

"It was just that your texts sounded really urgent. Well, as much as a text message can sound urgent. Did something happen today?" He laid the bag down. It was cream colored, with the name of the restaurant, Ditirambo, written in a stylized flourish along the side.

Then he pulled out a dark bottle of red wine, the cork sealed with wax, from his jacket. Two thin glasses wrapped in cloth followed, and finally a corkscrew.

These he spread out on my desk after closing my laptop and moving it to the window sill.

The food smelled so good. "Another favorite place of yours?" I said, nodding at the bag.

"I don't know. I've never tried it before. It comes highly recommended, though."

"It smells delicious," I said. And the wine. I couldn't believe that he'd actually stopped to get wine and glasses, too.

"Needs to breathe," he said, driving the corkscrew in, the wax seal fracturing and crumbling around the neck of the bottle, and then he grimaced slightly as he yanked it out. He held it under his nose, inhaling it, and I realized that I didn't know anything about wine other than that it came in white and red.

And that clearly he knew far more than that.

What can you offer him? Abby's snide voice echoed.

He saw me watching him and mistook my expression for curiosity. He offered me the cork. "Would you like to? It's Vespolina. 2007. A good year. It should go nicely with the red sauce. I thought you'd appreciate something nice."

I took the cork and put it under my nose, imitating him. It smelled of alcoholic grape juice. I thought maybe I could maybe detect a tartness to it, and perhaps an earthiness below that. But it could very well have been my need to find something about it.

I pictured Abigail's cruel, mocking grin.

Apparently my consternation also showed itself and Liam smiled. "Don't worry. Just trust me that it will be good."

"I will."

Then he went about setting the table. The cloth he'd wrapped the wineglasses in was just wide and long enough to cover a stripe in the middle of the desk, its edges hanging off the front and back.

The doggie bag from the restaurant contained disposable plastic cutlery and plates, and the food itself had been parceled in plastic-topped Styrofoam containers currently clouded with steam.

"High dining at its best," I said. It was pretty funny to me, in a sad way, watching a man worth billions set the table and then eat using throw-away dishes.

It was nice though, him being there, showing concern for me.

"So what happened?" he said. He sat on the mattress, which, combined with the height of the desk put his plate and wineglass at chest level. He didn't seem to mind. He'd insisted that I take the chair.

"What?" I said, a few pieces of penne speared to my fork and halfway to my mouth, "Oh, yeah, school. It was just a hard lecture and I thought it would make me feel better to talk through it with you."

Then I ate the penne from my fork. It was good. And the wine really did bring out all the flavors in the red sauce.

"It really was important, what I had to go do today. You have no idea how badly I wanted to just curl up with you in bed for a few more hours."

That gave me my opening. My penne-bearing fork drifted back down to my plate, forgotten. "What was it? What did you have to do?"

He answered without hesitating. "I had to meet with someone regarding a potential merger that could really give Mass Systems a solid foothold in southern Europe."

"Sounds pretty tense... Probably lots of sterile board rooms and sweaty pitchers of ice water on the table?" I said.

Why did I want to catch him in a lie so badly? Because it would make all this so much easier, I knew. It would justify anything I chose to do.

"Not at all," he said, "Actually we went to that little gelato shop I showed you. Fratelli's. Although now I wished it had been in a boardroom. She was pretty handsy."

I'd been trying to think of some way to ask if it had been a man or woman that sounded natural, but he'd done my work for me. It also seemed that Abigail hadn't told him I'd been there after all.

Why do you have to be so perfect? I thought. He wasn't giving me any way out here at all, no way to any sort of moral high ground.

"She?" I said.

"Lisa di Firenze. She's..."

"The head of the biggest media conglomerate in Italy," I finished for him.

He nodded, impressed. However, that made me feel worse. It was borrowed knowledge, stolen, even.

"That she is," he continued, "But like I said, handsy. I was glad when it was over and I could come see you. Actually, that reminds me. She wanted to meet again tomorrow, but I told her I had another important engagement."

"What?"

"You, me, and that wing of the Capitoline museum we missed. I didn't tell her that, of course."

I dropped my fork, splattering a bit of sauce on the white cloth. "Why did you do that?" It came out more intense than I'd intended. "You shouldn't have done that."

Liam took a serviette from the doggie bag and dabbed at the spilled sauce. It sopped up the excess, but left little dark splotches that looked like dried blood. "It's no big deal, really. Like I said, you gave me a great excuse. I intend to thank you properly for it later." His voice dripped with secret and sexy promises that had my body responding before I could stop it, the inside of my thighs throbbing and hot.

He slid his hand across the desk, intent on touching my fingertips with his. I pulled back. He moved faster, catching my hand, trapping it. It was so nice to touch him.

But was it only nice because I knew that I shouldn't?

"Liam, I don't want to get in your way here. I don't want to keep you from doing what you came here to do."

"There's something wrong here," he said, not letting go of my hand, "Something you're not telling me. And I mean more than a tough lecture."

"I hate how you do that."

"What?"

"See right through me. Read me like an open book. Whatever."

"I love that you're an open book, that you don't try and hide what and who you are." His thumb traced gently over my knuckles. It felt nice, so nice.

"That's nice... Look, I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?"

"Okay. I'll be there when you're ready," he said.

I knew he had to be at least partially right about me. Otherwise it wouldn't have been so hard to repress the urge to tell him that I'd seen him today at Fratelli's, to tell him what Abigail had said to me.

Because I knew if I did he would disagree. And that he'd have good reasons. Probably good enough to sway me away from the conclusion that I'd arrived at as soon as he came in with that doggie bag of delicious pasta and that bottle of red wine that tasted better than any wine I'd ever had before.

"You're too good for me," I said.

He squeezed my hand lightly. "Don't say that. Never say that. If anyone should say something like that, it's me."

I couldn't look at him anymore. "This is really good. I mean it. But... do you think that..."

"I could go?"

"It's just that if I want to fix this mess with school I really need to concentrate on it for now. Thank you for visiting. It was really sweet of you."

For a second, I thought he might press the issue, thinking of how he'd wanted to "thank" me for delaying that second meeting. And I wanted him to try. Not only because I knew I would give in like my body demanded, but that I could also use it to justify to myself that he only wanted me for said body and its demands.

But of course he was too good for that. I should have known. I did know, somewhere.

"I understand," he said, "I know you'll figure this out."

Then he lifted his wine glass and my heart sank. There was still a mouthful of wine sloshing at the bottom of it. "To you, Emma, and to digging yourself out of this mess."

I picked up my glass. There was still a little wine in it, too. He clinked them together lightly, the vessels making a sharp, sweet sound that contrasted with the slightly bitter aftertaste of the wine they contained.

He had his hand on the latch when I jumped up from the chair. I couldn't let him go, not without one final kiss to impress on my memory.

He caught me up in his arms, squeezing so hard I could barely breathe. It started sweet, our lips grazing so that I tingled. Then our lips parted and I could taste the wine again. I could feel his stubble tickling at my cheeks and chin.

It was almost as good as that first kiss. It may well have been better, if I hadn't known it was a farewell kiss.

He didn't know that, of course. Not yet. But from the intensity of it I wondered if he picked up on some inkling of it from me.

He held me to him like he'd never let me go, and I wanted so desperately for that to be true.

I'd gone up on my tiptoes to get my mouth closer to his, and my calves and the soles of my feet ached from holding me when he loosened his grip and I sank back down to the floor.

"I don't think I could ever get enough of kissing you," he said.

"We all have our crosses to bear," I replied, meaning it as a joke. Still the sentiment left me with a warmth inside my stomach that I couldn't blame entirely on the wine.

He knew that I was upset. But he also knew that I didn't want to talk about it yet. "I'll see you tomorrow. Pick you up here? And if you could tell Mrs. Rosselini to not brandish that rolling pin every time I come by, that would be nice."

"Okay, I will."

He opened the door and slipped out, taking the stairs slowly so that he could keep tossing glances back at me over his shoulder.

At the bottom of the staircase, he started rounding the corner but leaned back in, showing the top half of his body only. He waved at me. I waved back.

When I closed the door I leaned against it. The world was a still and empty place for me. By rote, my brain pretty much shut off, I tossed the remains of our dinner into the small bin by the door and then tied the bag shut.

I really should have taken it down to the bin in the alley, but I didn't want to. What if Liam had gotten a call and was just sitting in his car out there? He'd see me and I couldn't take that.

There was still the wine, though. The 2007 Vespolina that had brought out the richness of the pasta sauce so nicely. I picked it up and the dark liquid within filled it up about a third of the way.

I tipped it over and let it slosh lazily into my glass, the wine making a glug-glug noise as it pulsed through the neck of the bottle.

I took a good swallow of it, letting it make a warm ball in my belly, before I sat down and swung my laptop open.

Then I typed. It wasn't a long letter. But I'd always found that there is rarely a correlation between length and difficulty. Sometimes long essays came out of my head fully formed and complete.

Other times, like this one, even getting just those few sentences out made me feel like Sisyphus, hauling that heavy rock up the hill only to have it tumble back down again, my mind conjuring the painting by Titian that displayed this eternal ordeal.

I deleted all the lines wholesale at least half a dozen times before it felt as though they approached saying what I had in my head.

There was a flight back to the States out of Da Vinci-LIRF that l intended on being on tomorrow afternoon. I would have preferred sooner, but now that tourist season was over there weren't as many to choose from.

And then there was only the delivery left.

***

"Perfect," I said, grabbing my mail from the stoop where Mrs. Rosselini always left it for me. There were a couple of rolls wrapped up in a napkin on top of them.

The letter that drew my comment was an official one from Sapienza University. I opened it, expecting Italian but finding English.

It told me pretty much what Dr. Aretino had said. My grades were no longer satisfactory. I was now on academic probation. Without improvement my tenure at the school would be terminated along with my student visa. Yada-yada.

It bolstered my decision that this was the right thing to do. Dr. Aretino had me. If there was a way out of this, I couldn't see it. At least leaving this way I wouldn't have to see him again.

And Liam would understand. Especially with what I'd said in the letter (which I had in an unsealed envelope secreted in my messenger bag).

I wanted to go down and tell Mrs. Rosselini in person, but I couldn't bring myself to. I decided I'd leave a note on the door when I came back here to pick up my bags on my way to the airport.

Then I went over to Liam's hotel. All the way over, the sky, a uniform and unbroken grey, drizzled. The rain was sharp and cold. It seemed fitting.

The doorman looked me up and down and at first I thought he wouldn't let me in, but he did, hauling the door open and looking down at his booted feet.

The lobby of the Forum hotel was grand, with Corinthian columns, copies of famous frescoes on the walls, and a starburst on the floor like the one Liam and I had seen.

With it being off season, only a few of the lounges were occupied, a tuxedo-clad waiter moving between the vast spaces bearing a tray with some champagne flutes on it.

I went up to the auditor, a tall, thin man who parted his hair in the middle and wore a well-oiled pencil mustache on his upper lip. That upper lip twitched when he saw me approach.

"Yes?" he said, taking my blonde hair (now almost brunette with the rain dampening it) and my hesitant steps as indicators that I was neither a guest nor an employee.

It wasn’t, "May I help you, miss?" No, just a curt single syllable. We both knew that I didn't belong here. Not with my $30 Payless shoes, my cheap Target messenger bag, and my lack of any fine jewelry.

There were probably coasters there in the lobby worth more than everything I had on me.

"Can I leave a message here for one of your guests?" That's how they always did it in the old movies, picking up and leaving messages with the concierge. It used to seem terribly romantic and nostalgic to me, leaving messages. Like sending a telegram. Now it seemed like my only option.

"Perhaps," he said, "Which guest?"

I'd already begun reaching into the messenger bag, my fingers brushing against the corner of the envelope.

I wanted to go up and slip the note under Liam's door, but as soon as I'd come in I'd known they wouldn't let me get to the elevator or the door to the staircase without asking to see my room key.

So I pulled out the envelope and started handing it to him. He reached out, but then I pulled it back. He frowned.

There was no way I was handing this oily man my unsealed farewell note. He might read it. And I could tell by the way he eyed it that he would do just that. So I wet the glue strip with a few quick licks and then pressed it shut.

Only then did I hand it over. He looked somewhat annoyed. "And who is this for, miss?"

"Liam Montgomery."

This wasn't the sort of place where you needed to cite a room number. The management probably insisted that the front desk know the name of every single person staying there.

He slipped it beneath the lip of the desk where I couldn't see it anymore. My throat tightened, suppressing my impulse to tell him to give it back, that I'd changed my mind.

"Don't worry, it will be safe here," the concierge said, interpreting my expression as concern over whether or not I could trust the hotel with my note. An idea that he clearly found more than a little amusing.

"Okay," I said.

"Is there something else I can assist you with? Perhaps I can call a taxicab for you?"

Ah yes, I've completed my business here and now I should get out. This place isn't for people like me.

"No, thanks. By the way, you should really get someone who knows what they're doing to fix that copy of the Mona Lisa," I said, pointing towards the facsimile hanging on the wall behind him, "In the real one her right hand is over her left. In yours she has her left over her right."

"What?" he said, looking back at it even as his neck and cheeks flushed red.

It was nitpicking, and most people would probably have never noticed the error. Then again, most people hadn't written a paper in their sophomore year of college discussing the layering technique Da Vinci had used in creating that particular masterwork.

It also gave me a sense of satisfaction and superiority as I walked away from the concierge desk, leaving him flustered as he examined the facsimile.

It was a short-lived victory with an even more ephemeral sense of triumph as I walked back out into that drizzle.

When would Liam receive the letter? Had it been a mistake to get that jab in on the concierge? He could retaliate easily by "forgetting" about the letter, "accidentally" putting it through the shredder. Or something along those lines.

Besides, I didn't know when Liam would even get it. I checked my phone, shielding the touch screen from the rain by leaning over it. It was coming up to 10 in the morning and he hadn't texted or called yet to confirm our date for the day.

So I went back to the flat (I no longer considered it my flat) to pack and to leave a letter for Mrs. Rosselini.

I had a plane to catch. And a class this afternoon to miss. I wondered what Dr. Aretino would think of my absence.

Mostly, though, I wondered about how Liam would react to my letter and to my leaving.